


Spring

by messageredacted



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:21:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messageredacted/pseuds/messageredacted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has always known that he was mortal, but it’s only now, in the restless spring air in the flat, that he can feel every second of his life ticking away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Written for thegameison_sh prompt: Spring
> 
> Originally written on 31 May 2011.

There's a sticky humidity about the place, making the wallpaper curl and leaving rings under the mugs of tea on the table in the kitchen. The windows in the living room are open, letting in air and noise from the street below.

The flowers in the vase on the table are well past their prime. The water has gone cloudy and there is a white fuzz growing on the stems. The heads of the flowers have drooped, littering the table surface with petals. John bought them a week ago out of some misplaced idea of brightening up the flat with a touch of spring, and over the days they’ve wilted and slumped and collapsed in on themselves, and in a few more days they’ll be nothing but brown slime on the table. That’s what spring is, Sherlock thinks. Everything ripening and turning to rot far too fast, like the strawberries in the market that turn white after two days. Like the bulb of garlic in the basket on the counter, already sprouting. The rest of the year, things freeze and go still, or turn hot and stagnant, but in the spring, time speeds up. It goes by too fast.

Sherlock has always known that he was mortal, but it’s only now, in the restless spring air in the flat, that he can feel every second of his life ticking away.

John comes in from work, his shirt sleeves rolled up, looking relaxed. “Let’s go out for dinner,” he says to Sherlock, stretching. “I want to walk.”

Sherlock agrees, because he’s been in this flat for too long and if he stays here much longer he’s going to set fire to something. In half an hour they’re out in the evening air, walking leisurely. There is something that Sherlock wants to say, hovering on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn’t really know what it is, so instead he stays silent. The physical act of walking, at least, makes him feel less like time is getting away from him, and he can almost relax enough to forget the claustrophobic feeling of it.

It doesn’t stay away for long, and before their food is served, Sherlock is drumming his fingers on the table and toying with those words on the tip of his tongue again. John is telling him about his day in that way he does when he knows Sherlock isn’t listening to him, until finally he reaches over the table and covers Sherlock’s drumming fingers with his hand, with a look that says ‘enough’. When Sherlock stills, John takes his hand back.

“John,” Sherlock says, but stops there, uncertain what he meant to come after that.

“Sherlock,” John says patiently. How can he be so patient, when time is slipping away from them both so quickly?

“I feel like I’ve been wasting time,” Sherlock says. The words are frustratingly useless. John looks at him, uncomprehending.

“I never thought I’d miss it,” Sherlock adds. “Life, I mean. Life with other people.”

John still looks blank, studying Sherlock. “Life with other… You mean, relationships? You miss having relationships with people?”

“I never wanted any of that,” Sherlock says.

“Of course,” John says, frowning at him.

He should leave it there. It’s better like this, with John still not getting it. Sherlock doesn’t know if there’s anything to get. The waiter refills their water glasses and the conversation pauses. Sherlock toys with his glass and thinks that yes, he’ll leave it there. He doesn’t know where he was going with the conversation anyway.

“What makes you miss it now?” John says, ruining everything.

“I don’t know.” Sherlock looks at the candle in the middle of the table. “My life seems different now.”

John gives a half smile. “I can’t imagine you in a relationship.”

Condensation runs down the side of Sherlock’s water glass. He lifts it and pauses, then gives a firm shake of his head.

“No,” he says. “Neither can I.”

John waits for a moment for Sherlock to say more, and when he doesn’t, he starts to talk about a patient at work. Around the restaurant, people sit at tables, digesting food, shedding cells. Some day soon, Sherlock is going to die, and he’s never going to know what it was like to have any sort of relationship at all. Before John, he never cared.

He takes a breath and interrupts John. “But I’d like to try,” he says.


End file.
